Media reports today show the US military is confident it can topple Saddam Hussein's regime in a campaign lasting around a month.
And a senior aide to US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld believes the Iraqi President could be toppled before the next Arab summit meeting in March.
Mr Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's Defence Policy Board, quoted in the Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, said the US could win a swift war "within 30 days" with "a large number of allies besides us".
"Even if we don't have a single ally, we will be capable of doing what we need to do. Saddam Hussein must go by any means sooner or later," Mr Perle said.
US and British plans for the opening phase of a war on Iraq call for a precision bombing campaign that would destroy symbols of Saddam Hussein's power and demoralise Iraqi troops, media reports said today.
The Pentagon intends to fire 3,000 guided bombs in the first 48 hours of a conflict to "pave the way for a ground attack to topple a government in shock," The New York Times reports, quoting unnamed US defence officials and a government advisor.
The raids would target Saddam's palaces and home town of Tikrit as well as key ministries, The Observer says.
Other targets would include formations of Saddam's elite Republican Guard, the Special Republican Guard and police and intelligence services, the paper said.
"The war will start with an extremely large bang," one unidentified official told the paper.
"The point of the exercise is to avoid fighting in Iraq's cities and persuade Iraqi forces very quickly that there is no point fighting to defend the regime," the official said.
The reports emerged as Washington and London apply pressure on reluctant members of the UN Security Council to support a conflict if UN inspections do not detect Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
US military planners hope a targeted attack would result in the surrender of many Iraqi troops even before US-led ground forces engage them, and speed the collapse of President Saddam Hussein's government, The New York Times says.
More than 600 US warplanes would carry out the bombing, which would be calibrated to minimise civilian deaths and infrastructure damage. More than 6,700 satellite-guided bombs and 3,000 laser-guided bombs were already stockpiled in the region for use.
"The challenges in this air campaign will be to achieve certain military and psychological effects at the outset, but have as much of the infrastructure existing when it's over," General Ronald Fogleman, a member of the Defence Policy Board advising the Pentagon, told the paper.
US troops would invade north from Kuwait and south from Turkey, the paper said - despite there being no public commitment from Ankara to host such a large US force.
"An assessment of troop deployment orders indicates a plan to send sizable heavy forces through Turkey and into Iraq, while keeping the number of American troops within Turkey at any one time within a cap set by the Turkish government," the paper reports.
Special Operations forces would at the same time fly in to seize key installations such as airfields, it says.
New microwave weapons designed to burn out electronic systems such as computerised defences would be used judiciously to ensure that basic civilian needs such as water and electricity were not totally shut off, the paper reports.
AFP